My First Job Interview

My first job interview was the easiest. The hiring manager -- if you could call him that -- simply asked if I wanted to make a quarter, and I said yes. We all said yes, because who doesn'tt want to make a quarter when they're six? So we each grabbed a rake or a broom or a trash bag or whatever else this man handed us from the back of his garage and headed out for our first day of work.

This was back in what you'd call a simpler time, I guess, and it must have been okay then for the older, never-married men on the block to offer the neighborhood kids a quarter each to do things like clean up all the leaves in the little park on the corner where we often liked to play. It must also have been okay then for six year olds to wander around the neighborhood wielding rakes and brooms and trash bags unsupervised, because none of the other adults who we talked to that day seemed to mind -- not even when we brought home spotless new quarters and spent most of dinner time trying to make our siblings jealous.

I suppose the adults saw the assignment as the old man's way of teaching us neighborhood kids about the value of money and community service and teamwork and so on. But really it only taught us that we could make a quarter if we just went down to the little park on the corner and hung around teasing the girls who lived across the street until it was time to return the rakes and go home. Which is what we did. And which is what I remember clearly every time I walk into another interview.